Devolution (Scotland Referendum)

Debate between Graham Stuart and Sadiq Khan

Tuesday 14th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan]

I will do my best, as did the Leader of the House, to make a rational speech and address that very point later in my speech.

The Scottish referendum was a shining beacon of democracy at its best. Faced with a crucial choice about their future, registration and turnout among the people of Scotland was unprecedented. No one can have failed to be impressed by the millions of people coming out to vote and being so passionate about the future direction of their country. By a clear majority, the Scottish people voted to pool and share resources across the UK, and I would like to pay tribute to the enormous hard work of some involved in the Better Together campaign from across the political spectrum. In the Scottish Parliament, I pay tribute to Johann Lamont for Labour, Ruth Davidson for the Conservatives and Willie Rennie for the Liberal Democrats.

I also pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr Kennedy), to the Secretary of State for Scotland, the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), and to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the right hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Danny Alexander), who all played a big role, and to my right hon. Friends the Members for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) and for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling), my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran), my right hon. Friends the Members for East Renfrewshire (Mr Murphy) and for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mr Alexander) and my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Anas Sarwar). I also pay tribute to campaigners on the yes campaign for their passion and hard work and to all those who voted.

The referendum sent a clear message, from both yes and no voters, that the status quo is unacceptable—that we cannot keep running the country the way we do—and this groundswell is not restricted to Scotland but has been repeated the length and breadth of the country. The country wants to break the stranglehold of Westminster, and it wants power shifted away from this place on a grand scale. People want to feel they genuinely have a say. They are fed up with feeling powerless and they are frustrated that powerful vested interests are not faced down. They want decisions and power close to where they live, in towns and cities up and down the country. That is why we need to grasp this opportunity and reshape the country in the way the people want, not the way we in Westminster want. Westminster does not always know best—

[Mr Graham Stuart]

rose—

[Sadiq Khan]

—and that is a good point at which to give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Stuart]

Has the right hon. Gentleman spoken to many of his own constituents? Are they telling him that they do not believe in English votes on English laws? I do not believe that that is true. The right hon. Gentleman’s party is going to set itself on the wrong side of the people, at a time when, as he has rightly said, there is a real sense of neglect and frustration as a result of the failure to listen. He is taking a great risk here. He should listen to this: English votes for English laws is right. Everyone else—Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Scottish nationalists—knows that, and so should he.

[Sadiq Khan]

All that I will say to the hon. Gentleman is that that did not work very well in Clacton.

The United Kingdom has undergone nearly two decades of constitutional change. The Leader of the House mentioned the most recent changes: the Scotland Act 2012 and the Wales Bill, which is currently before the other place. Vernon Bogdanor, the Prime Minister’s former tutor, described Labour’s recent 13 years in government as

“an era of constitutional reform comparable to that of the years of the Great Reform Act of 1832”

or the Parliament Act 1911. That era included the establishment of a Scottish Parliament, a Welsh Assembly, a Northern Ireland Assembly and a London Mayor and assembly, and of proportional representation in elections to all those bodies and in European elections. It included House of Lords reform and the ejection of all but 92 of the hereditary peers, the introduction of people’s peers and an elected Speaker, and the introduction of the country’s first-ever legislation requiring political parties to publish lists of their donors. We established an independent electoral commission. We introduced the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Freedom of Information Act 2000, which gave the public a legal right to gain access to Government information, and we established the separation of powers through the creation of the Supreme Court.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Graham Stuart and Sadiq Khan

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan]

I realise that the Justice Secretary has not practised law recently, but if a judge could deliver a life sentence for such offences now, he or she would do so. It is because judges have the power under the IPP sentence to deliver indeterminate sentences to protect the public that they deliver those sentences. I am afraid that the Justice Secretary is not right.

A critical weapon will be absent from a judge’s arsenal, preventing that judge from handing down the most appropriate sentence. The judge will simply not be able to sentence the offender with the condition that only when the authorities are satisfied that he is not a risk to society will he be released. I know that that will free up prison places and save the Government money, but taking risks with public safety is plain wrong, which is why we will oppose new clause 30.

Public safety will also be compromised by the proposed “two strikes and you’re out” sentences. That is a great media soundbite and a sure-fire way of making the Government seem tougher than they really are, and it is precisely the kind of thinking that lies behind the inclusion of the words “punishment of offenders” in the Bill, but policies relating to public safety cannot be determined by a public relations strategy.

We do not have to scratch very far beneath the surface to see that the Government’s plans are riddled with problems. Not only are they a rehash of failed Conservative policy from the 1990s, but they introduce a worrying amount of risk—risk that will undermine public safety. Through their “two strikes” policy, the Government absolve themselves totally of any responsibility to identify the serious, violent offenders who are most likely to reoffend. That should be done at the time when the first sentence is handed down for the commission of a heinous crime. It was for the purposes of precisely this scenario that the previous Government created indeterminate sentences, but this Government are making no effort to protect the public from those who are most likely to commit further serious and violent crime following their release. They will address the problem only once the offender has committed a second crime.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman has cited cases, and appalling cases at that, in which he feels that an indeterminate sentence is appropriate. Can he give any examples of cases in which he thinks that an indeterminate sentence has not led to justice—in which people have been locked up for many years, perhaps longer than they should have been?

[Sadiq Khan]

I shall come to the challenges posed by IPP sentencing. I accept that criticisms could be made about cases of people who should perhaps have been released and have not been. The hon. Gentleman has made a fair point. However, I do not think that the Government should risk the possibility that their policy will create countless additional victims, pain and misery that could be prevented if they took seriously their responsibility to keep the public safe. It should also be noted that the threshold for the handing down of a mandatory life sentence for the second offence is higher than that required for an indeterminate sentence. As a result, there is a risk that some of the most dangerous and serious criminals will not even be covered by the “two strikes” proposals. All that points to the need for some kind of indeterminate sentence that judges could use only in the most serious circumstances.

The 2008 reforms helped to deal with some of the problems that were inherent in the Criminal Justice Act 2003, and I pay tribute, as did the Justice Secretary, to the work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) for the work that he did at that time. If the Government think that further reform is required, they can take many positive lessons from Northern Ireland’s successful introduction of indeterminate custodial sentences. I know that the Justice Secretary has corresponded with Northern Ireland colleagues, and has had discussions with my right hon. Friends the Members for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins) and for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) on this very matter. He has said nothing, however, about why he believes the Northern Ireland experience does not contain lessons for England and Wales; instead, he simply dismissed that possibility out of hand.